“Some women,” Dahariel said in that same hard tone devoid of any hint of humanity, “getunder a man’s skin until digging them out makes you bleed.”

“You can run,” Dorian said in a neutral tone that did nothing to lessen the intensity of hisexpression, “but sooner or later, you run out of places to run to.”

“Is your skin this tone all over?" "Only one way you're going to discover the answer to that.”

“Go on,” he said in a low tone that was a dare. “Keep on poking the hungry wolf, see how naked it gets you.”

“Illium seems far too pretty to be dangerous.” Dmitri’s male beauty, by contrast, was a darker, edgier thing.“No one ever expects him to take out a blade and slice off their balls,” he said with lethal amusement in his tone as he drove them toward the GeorgeWashington Bridge. “He does it with such grace, too.”

“You’d make an enemy out of me over a human?” The word “human” might as well have been “rodent.”

“He has a fascination with mortals.Raphael had said that to her before she'd woken with wings of midnight and dawn."Why are you starting at me, Ellie?" Illium said without taking his eyes from the blade dancing around his fingers.The words were instinctive, something she might as easily have said to rib Ransom. "You're so pretty, it's difficult to resist."A flashing grin, a hint of that aristocratic English accent in his response. "It's hard to be me, it's true.”